Acer comments on Android rumours and gossip

Yesterday we attended Acer’s UK press launch for its upcoming range of smartphones. Although we had already spoken to Acer at MWC in Barcelona last month, we wanted to see whether we could squeeze any more information out of the company regarding the possibility of an Acer Android handset. Held at a suitable hotel in Covent Garden, London, the launch consisted of hands-on time with the 4 previously announced Windows Mobile smart-phones and two netbooks, one running Windows and another running Linux. This was then followed by an hour long presentation from Aymer De Lencquesaing (Senior Corporate VP, President Acer Smart Handheld Business Group) regarding Acer as a company and the road map for their upcoming range of smart phones.

Although Acer made it very clear during the presentation that all the announced phones, including those codenamed the F1, C1 and L1, will be running Windows mobile, I asked the pointed question “whether any of their second half handsets could run another OS, such as Android”.

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The answer was ““there is this possibility, yes.” Now out of context this may sound like Acer will certainly release an Android handset in late 2009. However, the answer was in response to the possibility of a different OS as opposed to the possibility of Android per se. However, in a one on one chat I had with Acer’s PR representative, she too hinted at the possibility of Android and even admitted that “there have been rumours floating around”, before saying “but at the moment no decision has been made”.

The short story is that Acer currently has not announced any plans for Android, and clearly has a tight working relationship with Microsoft. However, whether it is purely due to the increased press they receive when talking about Android, or whether it is actually a possibility, Acer still seem open to the idea that they might have an Android handset by the end of 2009.